animosity

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English animosite,^[2][3] borrowed from Middle French animosité,^[4][5][3] or directly borrowed from Late Latin animōsitās (“boldness, vehemence”),^[6][7][8][9] from Latin animōsus (“bold, spirited”),^[6][7][10] from animus (“soul, spirit, mind”),^[6][11][10] from Proto-Indo-European *ane- (“to breathe”).^[6][11] In Middle French animosité meant courage, ardour or fierceness from the late 14th century, and persistent hostility towards someone from the 16th.^[4] In post-classical Latin animōsitās meant courage in the 4th century, and wrath or enmity in the Vulgate.^[4][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Vigour, spiritedness or courage: about 1425, in a translation of Higden's Polychronicon, which uses animosite for the Latin animosius.^[2][4][7]

Semantic evolution

Trench explained that animositas was a late Latin word with two senses: spiritedness or courage, as in the courage of a horse, and that spirit turned in one direction, as vigorous enmity, the sense of the Vulgate;^[12] English had both.^[12] The sense of spirit or courage was still current in the 17th century, as in Holland's Plutarch, where a young crocodile shows "animosity, audacity, and execution".^[12] The hostile sense is recorded from 1568 in the OED,^[4] from 1605 in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster,^[7][3] and about 1600 in Etymonline, which traces it to a secondary sense in Latin.^[6] By Johnson's time (1755) it meant vehemence of hatred, implying "rather the disposition to break out into outrages, than the outrage itself".^[13] The old sense survived in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire dialect, where animosity meant spirit or pluck.^[14][4] Weekley compares the similar development of animus in the 19th century.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – vigour, spiritedness, courage.^[2][4][7]
• 1568 – open hostility; active hatred or enmity.^[4] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster date this sense to 1605.^[7][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Strong and active hostility or enmity; ill will that tends towards hostile action: There was no animosity between the two rivals after the match.^[3][9][4]
2. An instance of such hostility.^[4][9]
3. (now regional) Spirit, liveliness; courage.^[4][5][14]

Related words

• animus
• animate
• animal
• unanimous
• magnanimous
• equanimity

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b c d Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray